Denial's Dance
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: They danced around the truth, circling closer and closer like moths drawn to a flame. Juvia might be mostly oblivious to the threat, but Gray was the one getting burned. This is NOT Gruvia.


**Note: Well, I'm back. Sorry to everyone I've been ignoring. Now that I'm feeling a little more human, I'll be slowly slogging through the enormous backlog of PMs you guys have left me x.x Thanks for being patient with me.**

 **Alright, this story was inspired by Zunifex's story "blank canvas" (** **/s/12152100/1/blank-canvas), which is really rather good, despite my aversion to all things Juvia. This is pretty different from my normal stuff, but it was fun to experiment with a different style.**

 **If you missed it, this is _not_ Gruvia. If it's really going to bother you that much, you don't have to read it. **

* * *

_They danced around the truth, circling closer and closer like moths drawn to a flame. Juvia might be mostly oblivious to the threat, but Gray was the one getting burned._

.

It came as a surprise when Gray and Juvia became a couple shortly after the war against Alvarez was won. A few people nodded sagely and remarked that it was about time. Those two had been dancing around each other for months, and it had only been a matter of time before Gray dropped the charade and admitted to his feelings. And maybe it wasn't so surprising that it had happened now, while everyone was still riding the emotional high from Alvarez's defeat.

But other people weren't so sure. Fairy Tail's newest couple seemed happy enough, loving enough, in love enough, but it was hard to forget that Gray had shown zero romantic interest in Juvia until the day he asked her out. It seemed a little odd that he had suddenly had such a drastic change of heart, and the timing of the shift raised as many questions as answers. Why now? What changed?

Gray wasn't offering any explanations, so for a while things settled into a state of normalcy. But soon there were hints that not everything was what it seemed. Juvia was obviously having the time of her life, ecstatic that she'd managed to snag her Gray-sama at last, but Gray…

Well, Gray played happy well, but he'd always been a good actor. Maybe it was easy to miss the inconsistencies at first glance, but sometimes his smile took on an unhappy edge or he couldn't quite meet Juvia's eyes or he flinched away from physical affection before catching himself. But still, he'd given his life over to Juvia, always spending time with her and showering her with affection and giving her everything she wanted.

When it got to be too much, when the shadows under his eyes darkened and he started picking at his food again and his smile became more strained, he would make excuses to go out with his old team and it was like nothing had ever changed. Except that when it came time to go back, he might find a dozen little ways to delay them, postponing the inevitable. But eventually his conscience would get the best of him and he'd return to Juvia's loving arms, ready to play the perfect boyfriend again until the next time his heart started to fray at the edges.

Gray was a good actor, he could play his part well and fool half the guild, but it was only a matter of time until his downwards spiral ended in a fiery crash.

.

 _Sometimes Gray's energy would wane and he'd find himself just going through the motions. Then he'd accidentally miss a step or two and hold his breath as he waited to see if his partner would notice. She never did._

.

It had started off as a simple thing, but now it was burning out of control and Gray couldn't stop it. Maybe it wasn't fair to himself. Maybe it wasn't fair to Juvia either. He was doing it for her, to make her happy, but some part of his brain whispered that maybe it was cruel to build up her happiness on spun-sugar lies and sweet-nothing half-truths.

The breaking point had been when he'd watched her die for him. He had begged, he had pleaded, and he had said that he would take her feelings seriously if she would just wake up. So when she actually _had_ woken up… It was like he'd made a bargain and now he had to uphold his end of the deal.

In taking her feelings more seriously, he'd hoped that he could find a way to reciprocate. If he said that he loved her, if he held her and kissed her and whispered pretty words in her ear, maybe it would spark something inside him and he could make it true. But he was starting to suspect that he couldn't give her what she wanted. What was left of his heart was trapped within his ribcage and didn't want to come out. He wasn't sure that he could give it to anyone even if he wanted to.

He told himself that he'd try for a few more days and then call it off if he still felt nothing, but he'd been telling himself that for months now. He was too afraid to back out. He didn't want to break her heart again.

Gray would just keep trying until he figured it out, because Juvia deserved better. It just got tiring sometimes and the guilt ate away at him until he needed to escape _right now_. Which was easier said than done, since he spent a lot of time with Juvia these days. She always wanted to be with him, and he stayed with her so that he could try to trick himself into falling in love. But occasionally he just needed some time away from her, where he could temporarily forget about the mess he'd made of his life.

And that's why he wasn't with Juvia now.

He'd made his excuses and run out with the team on a job, and when they'd finished and he hadn't been able to face losing the freedom just yet, he'd somehow managed to misplace his ticket and they'd missed their train. It only made him feel worse that it wasn't really an accident, and even worse still that he was dreading going back to the guild.

It wasn't that he hated spending time with Juvia, exactly. She was sweet and a good friend and he enjoyed being around her. The problem wasn't her, it was him. Being with her kicked up the lingering feelings of guilt and failure that always seemed to follow him around these days.

So when they finally reached the guild and his teammates filed inside, Gray took a second to prepare himself. What he hadn't counted on was Erza accosting him.

"Gray?"

He turned, a reassuring smile automatically springing to his lips. "Yes, Erza?"

The requip mage shifted uncomfortably. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure."

When she moved away from the guild's entrance and around to the side of the building, Gray followed her unhurriedly. He didn't know what she wanted, but at least it was an excuse to avoid the guild for a minute or two longer. That thought immediately made him feel bad.

Erza stopped and turned back, steeling herself to say whatever it was she wanted to say. Gray wondered if he should be worried, because usually she didn't have a problem saying what was on her mind.

"This game you're playing with Juvia, it really needs to stop."

Gray stared at her, a nauseous feeling curling in his stomach. Was he really that obvious?

"There is no game," he said. That was true enough. Whatever tangled mess he'd made of things, he wouldn't call it a game. It was far too serious to be a game.

"Maybe 'game' isn't the right word." Erza sighed. "Gray, you're only hurting yourself by forcing yourself to be in a relationship you don't want to be in."

"I love her," Gray snapped, glancing around even though there was no escape route.

Erza stayed quiet for a moment. "I know you do. But are you _in_ love with her?"

Gray swallowed, his gaze dropping to the ground. That right there was the problem.

"I will be."

"Gray, you aren't… _required_ …to love her just because she loves you. Yes, things would be a lot easier if you were both equally in love, but that's just not how things turned out. And is it really fair to lead her on and feed her lies? Maybe she's happier, but she doesn't realize how close things are to falling apart."

"You think I don't know that?" He laughed hollowly. "I know that it isn't fair to her, but I'm working on it. Maybe this was a bad idea from the beginning, but it's too late to back out now. It would break her heart."

"Staying in this sham of a relationship isn't doing anything for _your_ heart," Erza said with a sigh. "You need to think about yourself as much as you think about her. You're not a bad person if you just want to be friends."

Gray stared at her with haunted eyes. "I watched her die. When I woke up, I held her dead body. And maybe she wasn't actually dead in the end, but I can't forget that. She tried to give me everything, and I'll give her back what I can."

"You shouldn't be guilting yourself into loving her."

"But I feel like I need to. I'm _trying_ , okay?" He wrapped his arms around himself. "I don't want to hurt her. I'm trying."

Erza eyed him sadly. "Maybe you're trying too hard."

Or maybe it was the exact opposite, because he hadn't managed to make himself fall in love yet, had he? He couldn't give up now. If this was a game then he couldn't afford to lose, for Juvia's sake as well as his own.

"Or maybe I'm not trying hard enough," he replied coolly, his eyes hardening with determination.

Erza winced. "Gray, you can't force yourself to fall in love."

"I can try."

"Gray…"

Shaking his head, he turned away.

"Gray, I just want to see you smile again."

He glanced back and arched an eyebrow. "I smile all the time."

"Not the way you used to," Erza said quietly, biting her lip. "I miss the really genuine smiles."

Gray stared at her for a moment. Then he gave her a not-quite-genuine smile and walked away.

After his talk with Erza, he was on guard around her. She was too stubborn to give up on something once she'd made it her business. But it wasn't Erza who tried to talk to him in the guild the next day. Surprisingly, it was Natsu.

"Hey stripper, where's your girlfriend?" he asked, sitting down next to Gray.

"Out running errands."

"And she didn't drag you with her?" Natsu's eyebrows rose fractionally. "I was starting to think you two were joined at the hip."

"What do you want, flame brain?" Gray asked suspiciously.

"We need to talk about you and Juvia."

Gray scowled. "Erza was talking to you, huh?"

"Yeah." The dragon slayer didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed. "She told me to talk to you. Apparently she thinks that if you won't listen to her, you'll listen to one of the guys."

Gray snorted. "She really thought that I'd listen to _you_?"

Natsu shrugged dismissively. "She's still convinced that we're secretly best friends or something."

"I'll tell her you talked to me. Now go away."

"She's worried about you."

"Well, she shouldn't be."

"Let me revise that," Natsu said, rolling his eyes. "We're _all_ worried about you."

"Well, you shouldn't be."

Natsu groaned in frustration. "You're being even stupider than usual with this bullshit."

"It's none of your business," Gray growled back, wishing everyone would leave him alone already.

"Maybe not, but we've been secretly best friends for a long time, so I like to think that I've earned the right to stick my nose in your business when you're being an idiot." Natsu blew out a harsh breath. "You're falling apart. You're not happy, sometimes you stop sleeping and eating almost entirely, and you'll barely even fight me anymore."

"You're overexaggerating."

"I'm _not_! I'm not sure if I should be more mad at you for being so masochistically selfless or so horribly selfish. You know that dragging this out is only going to hurt her more when she finds out the truth."

Gray winced and looked away. Yeah, sometimes he did feel pretty selfish.

"I'll figure out how to fix things by then," he said neutrally.

Natsu didn't respond immediately. "You drive me crazy," he said finally, "but I'd still rather see you happy than…this. You need to get out while you still can."

Gray chuckled darkly. "I'm in too deep now. I'll find a way to make things work."

"You're so stupid."

"Maybe," Gray agreed, standing up. "Later, flame brain."

"Hey!" Natsu protested as the ice mage started walking away. "Get back here! We aren't done yet."

"Sure we are."

But apparently they weren't, because Natsu couldn't take no for an answer and if they weren't going to talk, they were going to fight.

Later that night, when Gray went back to his apartment, he made the mistake of looking in the mirror. He tried to avoid it these days, because he didn't usually like what he saw.

"I love her," he said to his reflection.

Those dark eyes, enigmatic and cold and much too knowing, stared back at him, seeming to see straight through to his soul. _'But are you_ in _love with her?'_

Gray shook his head sharply, trying to banish the echo of Erza's words.

"Of course I am."

His reflection stared back, those fathomless eyes screaming _'liar'_.

A sudden knock shattered the oppressive silence, and Gray spun away from the mirror. Juvia was coming for dinner. Juvia who loved him, who he loved, who he was in love with. Sort of.

Pasting a smile on his face, he opened the door. Juvia smiled brightly, as radiant as ever. She was nice and pretty and he had every reason to love her, really. But when she came in, the kisses tasted bitter on his lips, the sweet nothings turned sour, the lies were like ashes in his mouth. Everything about them was bittersweet. She was sweet, he was bitter. Everything he touched came away with a bitter edge.

When she leaned in again, he instinctively flinched back. He smiled and tried to play it off, silently cursing himself as he held his breath and waited to see if she would notice his misstep. For a moment she blinked at him uncertainly, but then she just smiled and leaned in for another kiss.

Gray wasn't sure whether he was relieved or disappointed.

.

 _Sometimes it was like a masquerade, all dazzling costumes and pretty masks, a sugarcoated reality. It made Juvia feel like a fairytale princess and she loved it. And if her partner's mask occasionally seemed to slip a little, she could dismiss it as a trick of the light._

.

It had started off feeling like it was too good to be true, except that it _wasn't_. It was like one of Juvia's fantasies had jumped out of her head and into reality, and it was glorious.

Not that her fantasies had entirely stopped. She could still find all sorts of things to daydream about. Sometimes it was still fun to dress reality up, smooth out the uneven edges, make it into the perfect fairy tale she'd always dreamt of. She did spend a lot more time in reality these days though, if only because it seemed to have taken a step towards the world of her dreams, hovering right on the border between fact and fiction.

But reality was being good to her now. Gray-sama was perfect and they were happy. Juvia had spent a long time watching him, so maybe she was the first to have noticed that his smile changed. She couldn't say what exactly about it was different, but it had started almost as soon as they had finally started dating. She had changed his smile, given him a new happiness, and she was content with that. He had given her so much that it felt good to give something back.

The only thing not quite perfect about reality was that Gray-sama wanted to move pretty slowly. Juvia was more than ready to jump straight to the chase. Hell, she would get married tomorrow if he'd agree to it. She had been waiting for so long that she was already prepared to dive in headfirst. But she couldn't entirely blame him, because he hadn't pined after her for as long as she'd pined after him. He still needed some time to adjust.

Which raised the question of how long he _had_ been in love with her. It was hard to pinpoint the shift in his affections—everything had just seemed to come out of the blue. Maybe it didn't matter, but she was curious. She'd even asked him once.

"It started off as a simple thing," he'd said, his lips tugging downwards for the briefest of seconds. "But then it was burning out of control and I couldn't stop it."

Her Gray-sama was a poet. Who knew?

But she thought that she understood his point. Sometimes feelings like that just crept up on you out of nowhere and it was hard to tell when they'd even first appeared. It was like waking up one day and wondering when you'd fallen in love.

Funny, but maybe that had happened to Juvia too. The initial attraction had hit her all at once, but maybe it had really started off as an infatuation. Looking back, it was hard to tell at what exact moment she'd truly fallen in love.

Was it Tenrou, perhaps, when her feelings had been strong enough for Meredy-san to exploit? Or after the Grand Magic Games, when Gray-sama had died to save her and she'd been left with only the pieces of her broken heart until time rewound? Or during Tartaros, when she had killed the necromancer and feared that she no longer had the right to love him, until he had forgiven her?

It was hard to say, exactly. Perhaps Gray-sama was right. It had started off as something simple and then had grown into an uncontrollable blaze, impossible to ignore. How _romantic_.

It was a relief that things had finally worked out though, because she had been starting to wonder if maybe she'd never be able to make him fall in love with her, no matter how hard she tried. But she hadn't given up until she'd succeeded, and now things were fairytale perfect.

Even something as simple as eating dinner with Gray-sama in his apartment was perfect.

"Was Gray-sama fighting Natsu-san again?" she asked, noticing a nasty-looking burn on her beloved's arm.

He looked down, frowned, tugged his sleeve down over the burn. "Yeah. Something like that."

"Juvia will make Natsu-san pay for hurting Gray-sama!" she declared, face darkening.

"No, no," Gray said hurriedly, waving his hand in a placating gesture. "It's fine. Besides, I've gotten burned far worse than this before. This is nothing."

"Well, if Gray-sama is sure…"

"I am."

"Well, Juvia is certain that Natsu-san is no better off than Gray-sama," she said in satisfaction. Her Gray-sama was strong and he gave as good as he got.

Gray winced. "He's a lot worse off, actually. The idiot got distracted and I accidentally did some real damage. I had to go find Wendy, and then I hung around for a while to make sure he was okay."

"Gray-sama is very kind," Juvia remarked, shaking her head. "Especially after Natsu-san burned him. Sometimes Juvia wonders if there is anything Gray-sama would not do for his friends."

He was silent for a long moment, his eyes unfocused as he frowned off into space. "Yeah, sometimes I wonder that too."

Juvia smiled, because he was perfect and he was _hers_. She leaned in to kiss him, but he flinched back. Was something wrong? But then he smiled apologetically, and she figured that he had just been taken by surprise since he was lost in thought. Something about that extra-happy smile, the one she had given him, bothered her for a second. For a moment, it seemed to peel away and show something not quite right behind it.

Then she brushed it off and smiled and leaned in again.

After all, the lighting was dim and she'd always had too good of an imagination for seeing things that weren't really there. It was just a trick of the light.

.

 _To the spectators, it was a macabre display, this dance to the bitter, bitter end. It was hard to see a friend reduced to a puppet, forced through the motions. But sometimes it wasn't entirely clear who was bound by strings and who was playing who._

.

It had started off kind of sweet, but it grew more and more bitter as the weeks dragged on. It was painful to watch Gray and Juvia locked together in such a vicious dance, even if, or perhaps especially if, one of them was entirely unaware of the problem.

It was hard to point fingers and assign blame, especially when one was so desperately unhappy and the other was bound to have her heart broken. Whose fault was it? The girl whose over-the-top love had pressured someone into trying to love her back, and who was too oblivious to see the truth? Or perhaps it was the boy's fault, for starting a relationship with someone he knew he didn't love?

Maybe they were both at fault, both victims. But it still hurt, to see them acting out this charade. They were so obviously leading each other on that it begged the question of who was manipulating who.

Gray might be the one who knew what was going on, might be the one pulling the strings, but he'd tied all those strings to himself. He might be leading Juvia on in this merry little dance, but he was doing it by manipulating himself. The things he said and did were all carefully choreographed, and Juvia followed his lead happily. Gray was both puppet and puppeteer, twisting himself around until he broke in an attempt to reshape himself into someone else.

His intentions were good, but then again, the road to hell was paved with good intentions, wasn't it? Gray would damn himself to hell to make her happy, and Juvia's head was so far in the clouds that she still thought they were in heaven. It was an ugly situation all around.

"It has to stop," Erza said flatly, staring at Gray and Juvia across the hall. They were laughing and smiling, but Gray's expression was still that not-quite-right smile he'd picked up and put on like a pretty feathered mask.

The rest of the team shifted uneasily, conversation dying down as they followed her gaze.

"Leave it be," Natsu advised, pursing his lips as he pushed his food around his plate. "It's not our business."

"It's wrong to let them keep doing this to themselves," the requip mage insisted.

"He doesn't want us interfering."

"Get over yourself, Natsu. He's your friend, isn't he? How can you watch him do this to himself and not want to help?"

"We already tried talking to him." He stared down at his plate moodily. "He's stubborn. If we tell him what to do, he won't listen unless he wants to. He's already decided on what he wants to do, and we can't stop him."

"We have to try," Erza snapped, eyes smoldering. "He's killing himself."

"It's really sad," Lucy agreed, her melancholy gaze coming to rest on Gray. "I miss his real smile."

"He's trying so hard to be someone he's not that he's losing himself," Happy added solemnly.

They fell silent for a moment, contemplating their troubled friend. From the outside he looked almost the same, but it was like they could see him withering right in front of their eyes, until all that was left was a barely-there shadow. He laughed and talked and played his part, but his eyes were distant, and whatever world he was taking refuge in now wasn't this one.

"It's unhealthy for both of them," Lucy said finally. "I want Juvia to be happy, but not if her happiness is built on something that isn't real. And not at the cost of Gray's happiness."

"Something has to be done." Erza gave Natsu a dirty look. "You can help or not."

The dragon slayer sighed heavily. "Listen to what I'm saying for once. I know how he works. He's way too committed to this now, and it won't be easy to convince him otherwise. If we want to change things, we have to go about it in a different way. Gray isn't the weak link in this chain."

They all stared at him for a few seconds, thinking over his words.

"You mean Juvia?" Happy suggested.

Natsu shrugged. "All I'm saying is that he's not going to stop unless something makes him."

"Juvia it is," Erza said thoughtfully. She winced. "That's going to be a fun conversation."

It was Lucy who drew the short straw.

She wanted to put off the encounter and possible drowning for as long as possible, but the longer she waited, the worse things would get. The worse Gray would get. So she steeled herself and cornered Juvia while the water mage was walking down the street, by herself for once.

As expected, it went badly. Lucy tried to break it to Juvia gently, she really did, but it was a lost cause.

"Love rival is just jealous," Juvia said frostily, her eyes brimming with thinly veiled hostility. "Juvia and Gray-sama are very happy together."

Hell, they should have thought about that love rival thing. Of course Juvia wasn't going to listen to anything Lucy said. Despite the fact that Lucy had never shown any romantic interest towards Gray, her status as primary love rival had never quite faded.

"I know that you're happy," Lucy said carefully, wishing she was anywhere but here, "but Gray isn't."

The water mage drew herself up to her full height, eyes flashing daggers at the other woman. "Gray-sama is very happy."

All this time Lucy had mostly felt sorry for Gray, because he was the one who was unhappy and hurting, but now it was hard not to feel for Juvia too. Lucy didn't want to be the one to break the poor thing's heart. It wasn't a nice feeling.

She wondered if Gray had felt this bad each time he'd turned Juvia down. Maybe he'd finally had enough and couldn't take it anymore and that's why things had gotten so messed up. Lucy had thought he was kind of stupid for getting himself into this, but she could almost see why he'd done it. It was hard hurting someone when you really only wanted them to be happy.

"If you love him, shouldn't you be able to read him better than anyone else?" Lucy asked gently. "Have you seen what's behind his smile? What's in his eyes? He isn't happy, Juvia. I'm sorry, but he really, really isn't. And I want you to be happy, but you need to find a better way."

"Gray-sama says that he loves Juvia," the water mage snapped, turning away. "That is enough for Juvia."

"But is it enough for him?"

Juvia seemed to hesitate for a split second, but then she tossed her head and walked away, leaving Lucy staring after her forlornly.

The others weren't exactly ecstatic about the lack of success either.

"It was a bad idea to send me after her," Lucy told them. "She's still stuck on that whole love rival thing."

"We should have thought of that," Erza grumbled, grimacing. "But hopefully she's at least considering your words."

"Yeah right. She didn't listen to anything I said. She thinks I'm just trying to break them up so that I can have a shot with Gray."

"Well, if nothing else, at least you've put the idea in her head. We'll just have to try again later, after we give her a few days to cool off."

Lucy was not nearly so optimistic. "And what are we going to do differently this time?"

"Well, we won't send _you_ ," Happy said dryly.

"I'll do it," Erza said. "She's never really considered me a love rival."

"You're still female," Lucy pointed out. "And she's already defensive. She's going to think we're ganging up on her, like we're in a conspiracy or something."

The girls stared at each other for a moment and then looked over at Natsu.

" _Hell_ no," the dragon slayer growled.

"Do you think she'd listen to a talking cat?" Lucy asked, giving Happy a sidelong look.

"I'm not a cat!"

"Let's just give it a few days," Erza said with a sigh. "We'll figure something out."

They fell silent then, unwilling to admit that they were afraid that Gray and Juvia would be locked together until the bitter end.

.

 _And it was always, always like a midnight festival, the dancers whirling round the central bonfire, cutting closer and closer each pass. The danger was bearable right up until someone tripped one time too many and sent both partners pitching into the flames._

.

It was entirely unthinkable, and Juvia couldn't accept it. Her love rival was just trying to drive a wedge between her and her precious Gray-sama. Oh, it made Juvia's blood boil just thinking about it.

But once the anger died down, the uncertainty crept in. She found herself watching Gray more carefully, caught herself wondering about whether or not he was happy. As much as she wanted to deny it, it was eating away at her.

She began testing him with subtle remarks and gestures, just so that she could study his reactions. Soon she started noticing the little cracks—the way he'd sometimes flinch away if she got too close, the way he didn't always look her in the eye, the way he sometimes seemed to only be half there. But certainly she was just imagining things, because the love rival's words had wormed their way into Juvia's head and made her start looking for things that weren't there.

Still, she couldn't help but try one last test.

"I love you," he said, but now Juvia could see what Lucy had meant about his eyes. He was gentle, he was smiling, but there was something lurking deep in his eyes that frightened her.

When they kissed afterwards, she kept her eyes open. And for once, she really _saw_. She could read it in his face, the fact that he didn't love her but was trying anyway.

It left her reeling, and for the rest of the day she walked around in a fog, trying to mend her heart and figure out what to do. Maybe she had imagined it. And even if not, she could certainly write it off as a trick of the light. She could pretend like this whole incident had never happened, and go back to living in her sugarcoated reality. She could do it.

But would it be the same? Would she ever be able to entirely forget? And even if she could, would it be fair to Gray-sama? Would it be fair to keep herself happy by making him unhappy? What kind of love was that?

Juvia didn't know what to do. She wanted to wish it all away, but she couldn't and it hurt. It hurt to realize that she'd unknowingly been hurting the person she loved, and that he hadn't loved her back after all.

When it rained the next day, she smiled and blamed it on nature. Not all rain was hers, after all. But _oh_ , it hurt.

She still wasn't entirely sure what she should do when she left Gray chatting with Cana and slowly trudged over to where his old teammates were gathered.

"Juvia has been thinking," she said. They all turned to watch her guardedly. "She now realizes that love rival was right." She dropped her gaze to the floor and bowed her head, hot tears gathering in the corners of her eyes even though she refused to let them fall. "Gray-sama is not happy, and Juvia is being selfish."

Dead silence greeted her pronouncement.

Finally, Lucy sighed. "I'm sorry," she said simply.

"Juvia is too," the water mage said, sniffing loudly.

"I wish things could have been different." Erza sighed heavily and rubbed a hand across her face. "What are you going to do now?"

"Juvia…does not know."

"I still think he's an idiot for creating this whole mess in the first place," Natsu said, "but it can't go on. Are you going to end things?"

"Juvia…" She trailed off uncertainly and tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.

She should. She should end things. But could she? Couldn't she just pretend like this had never happened? She could ignore it all, couldn't she?

"I know it hurts." Lucy's voice was quiet, compassionate, but there was an edge of steel hidden underneath. "I know that this really sucks and I _am_ sorry. But he's hurting too, you know?"

Juvia wrapped her arms around herself and blinked back tears.

"Look at him," Erza said softly.

Almost unwillingly, Juvia obeyed.

"He might not be in love with you, but he must love you a lot to put so much effort into a relationship he never even wanted, just to make you happy. He loved you enough to do that."

Juvia bit the inside of her cheek, willing the pain to distract her from the single tear sliding down her face. She could see now, what Lucy had meant about Gray-sama's smile. He was smiling, but that change she had noticed wasn't happiness. She'd given him a smile of heartache rather than joy, and that hurt worse than anything else.

"Do you love him enough to let him go?"

.

 _And in the end, all that's left are ashes._

* * *

 **Note: Okay, I'm ready. Crucify me.**

 **emmahoshi: Alvarez is the current arc—Zeref and the Spriggans come from the Alvarez empire. And no, Gruvia isn't canon yet, although it will be. I just split off the main timeline. The "Gray-sama" and talking in third person drive me crazy too. Makes it really hard to write from Juvia's POV. And yeah, I don't like how Gray is sort of being pressured by everyone to get with Juvia. It's bad enough that Juvia is always harassing him—I don't like this idea that he has to love her back or he's a bad person. Not how life works. Well, I think that in the end _both_ people will be unhappy regardless of what happens, but yeah, I liked leaving the ending a little ambiguous. And no, that's fine, I think a lot of the same things about Juvia. Vent all that frustration XD**


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